Rep.’s Eric Cantor and Stephen Fincher published an article in Politico yesterday to tout the so-called Republican “Jobs Act”.
They begin with the Mom and apple pie bit explaining how:
“America has always offered immense opportunity because innovators have had the ability to take risks, work hard and be rewarded for it. Innovators, entrepreneurs and small-business people built the framework for American success, creating legacies lasting generations.
Companies like Ford, Apple and Boeing started as small businesses and became industry leaders, creating high-quality jobs and boosting economic growth…”
Of course they side step the little issue of where those “high-quality” jobs end up, so let’s look at a couple of examples; we’ll start with the car companies, courtesy of Cars.com:
“The Chevy Aveo…is built in Korea with 1 percent domestic parts. Chrysler’s recently discontinued PT Cruiser was built in Mexico, with a domestic-parts content of just 27 percent…the Chevy HHR, also hails from south of the border, with a domestic-parts content rating of 50 percent…the 2010 Ford Mustang and Chevy Camaro, have a middling 60 percent domestic content…the Dodge Challenger, comes in at 56 percent. Of the three, the Mustang is the only car built here; the Challenger and Camaro are assembled in Canada.”
Then there’s Apple; from a New York Times article in January
“Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today…almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.
[The President once asked Steve Jobs], “what would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Why can’t that work come home?”
Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”
“Similar stories could be told about almost any electronics company — and outsourcing has also become common in hundreds of industries, including accounting, legal services, banking, auto manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.”
And just one Boeing example via FlightGlobal:
“About 35% of the Boeing 787 is developed and manufactured by Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries.”
Cantor and Fincher go on to write,
“Whether it’s due to the threat of higher taxes; or regulations that place higher costs on businesses and limits on who can invest, small businesses and entrepreneurs are frozen in their tracks.”
Now far be it from me to question Republicans, they’re such upright, honest politicians; but how do Cantor and Fincher explain the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity which shows, (my emphasis)
“In 2010, 565,000 new businesses were started per month by new and repeat entrepreneurs, the same rate as in 2009. The 340 out of 100,000 adults who started businesses each month during 2010 represents a 4 percent increase over 2008.”
And a recent Gallup poll found:
“By 22% to 8%, more U.S. small-business owners expect to increase than decrease the total number of jobs at their company over the next 12 months, according to a new Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index poll conducted Jan. 9-13, 2012.
This 14-percentage-point advantage for expected job growth is the largest since the +15 of January 2008, suggesting small-business owners are more optimistic about hiring now than at any time in the past four years.”
Gallup also reported:
(They inexplicably titled their article, “Health Costs, Gov’t Regulations Curb Small Business Hiring” even though those things were 5th and 6th on the list respectively.)“U.S. small-business owners who aren’t hiring — 85% of those surveyed — are most likely to say the reasons they are not doing so include not needing additional employees; worries about weak business conditions, including revenues; cash flow; and the overall U.S. economy.”
There is one thing that Mr. Cantor, Mr. Fincher, and all Republicans fail to mention in their so-called “Jobs Act”s and their bogus concerns for small business, and that is the very important definition of what constitutes a “small business”.
As the Center For American Progress reported in 2010, among those considered a“small business”
“…is the Bechtel Corporation, the largest engineering firm in the country. It is the fifth-largest privately owned company in the United States, posting gross revenue in 2008 of $31.4 billion. The number also includes the Wall Street buyout firm Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, which has more than $54 billion in assets and 14 offices around the globe. The auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has operations in more than 150 countries, fits the bill as well.”
The Wall Street Journal explains:
“Known as pass-throughs, these firms pass along profits to investors who pay taxes on those sums through their individual returns.
By some estimates, more than 60% of U.S. businesses with profits of $1 million are structured as pass-throughs…
small-business groups and their allies in Congress, particularly Republicans, have pushed back on the idea of raising taxes on pass-throughs, warning that such a move could [drumroll please...]slow job creation.”
Republicans get away with making their bogus claims year after year because the working class part of their base believes everything they say, and their 1% part of the base reaps all the benefits.
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